POLITICS

Next day, the spring weather being mild and clawless, like a couchant cat, Mynheer Mopius arrived at Horstwyk station. He wore a silk neckerchief and new galoshes, for Harriet was a careful wife to him in a way. He had not felt in good health of late, and his leathery cheek had deepened to gamboge.

“Be very cautious what you eat, JacÓbus,” Harriet had said as he was preparing to depart. “If you partake of anything greasy, you are sure to be ill again.”

“I don’t care,” replied JacÓbus, recklessly. “I’d rather die than not eat. What’s the use of living if there’s nothing left to live for? I’d rather die at once than vegetate for thirty years on slops. Pass me the pickles. I could wager that you make believe I’m the baby that hasn’t come!”

Harriet smiled thinly. The greatest disappointment which can befall a woman lay upon her. Stowed away up-stairs were a pink berceaunette and a quantity of little garments that had never been used.

“There’s not much chance of my getting rich food at the Horst,” continued Mopius. “Ha! See? I should think they weigh out their butter there.”

“Poor Ursula!” said Harriet, softly. After a few moments of silence, she added, “It was such a pretty little boy.”

“Huh?”

“JacÓbus, how late will you want the carriage?”

“I sha’n’t want the carriage.”

“Not want the carriage?” Harriet well knew how he enjoyed driving away from the railway station amid an admiring crowd of acquaintances who walked.

“No, I shall come home on foot. Go you for a drive, Harriet; it’s rather a nice day. It’ll put some color in your pale cheeks.”

She looked across at him gratefully.

“Law!” he said, “to think how you’ve gone off of late. Who’d have thought it? You were a deuced fine woman, Harriet, in days gone by.”

“Oh, I’m a fine woman yet,” she answered. “You must leave me a little time.” She got up and walked to the window. “Willem is waiting,” she said. “Good-bye. Mind you don’t sit in a draught.”

Upon arriving at Horstwyk, Mopius went straight to the Parsonage, whence he could most conveniently order a fly for the Horst. The DominÉ came out into the garden, and gave his brother-in-law a hearty greeting. Nevertheless, he hastened to cut off any risk of a tÊte-À-tÊte.

“Josine will be delighted,” he said. “Let us go in to her. We have not seen you for a long time, JacÓbus. Not since—” The DominÉ threw open the sitting-room door.

“Not since the funeral,” supplemented JacÓbus, standing in the middle of the floor. “Ah, that was a very sad business. Good-morning, Josine.” He shook his head mournfully. JacÓbus was of opinion that social events should be made to yield their full meed of emotional enjoyment.

“Ah me!” replied Miss Mopius, heaving an enormous sigh. The whole apartment was littered with varicolored tissue-paper in sheets and strips and snippets. Miss Mopius was fabricating artificial flowers. Her whole face assumed an expression of deeply dejected resignation.

“How do you do, JacÓbus?” she said. “I’m glad to see you. I hope you are better. Sad, indeed. Did you say ‘sad’?”

“I did,” responded her brother, sitting down.

“Some people say ‘sad,’” explained Josine, in the same tone of aggrieved acquiescence, “and some people say ‘bad.’ I say ‘bad.’”

The DominÉ, who had remained standing near, emitted what sounded like a slight grunt of impatience.

“Yes, Roderigue, you may object,” continued Miss Mopius, carefully studying the pink paper frill between her delicate fingers, “but nothing will deter me from doing my duty. And it is my duty to point out distinctly that our dear Ursula has committed what I do not hesitate to qualify as a crime. It may be painful to you as a father—”

“Oh no, not any longer,” interrupted the DominÉ.

“I am inexpressibly grieved to hear you say so. But it is all the more incumbent upon me to show that I, at least, am not blinded by affection—or, let me openly declare, by prejudice. I am devotedly attached to my niece, but, as I regretfully confessed to Mevrouw Noks, and—and one or two other people, with tears—aye, with tears I said it”—Miss Mopius selected a wire and planted it in the heart of her flower—“dear Otto was murdered; inadvertently, of course, yet none the less wilfully murdered.” She shut her thin lips with a snap, and twirled a wisp of green paper round the wire.

“The weather is nice and mild,” said Mopius, “and for the time of year I should call it seasonable.”

“I notice an occasional crocus,” said the DominÉ.

“He deserved a better fate,” said Josine.

She shook her red ringlets and put up a thin hand to her head. “My heart aches,” she said, “to think how easily it might all have been avoided. Ursula was a child. Poor Otto! he wanted a woman of more experience—not a plaything, but a helpmate. He might have lived forty years longer. Ah, he deserved—”

“You,” interrupted JacÓbus, fiercely, with a sneer, his habitual form of humor. She bored him.

Miss Mopius rose to the occasion. Slowly she smoothed out her crimson-figured wrapper. “Yes,” she said. “Me, if you like, or any other woman past thirty. JacÓbus, you are unkind. Now you are here, you might as well give me some money for ‘Tryphena.’ We are sending out a box. I am making these flowers for it.”

“Flowers!” growled Mopius. “What—to sell?”

“No, no—to send. Freule Louisa has knitted seventy-three little tippets for the school-children—that’s the useful part, JacÓbus. And I make these flowers for their Christmas treat—that’s the ornamental. I must admit,” cried Josine, with a simper, “that I always prefer the ornamental!”

“Where’s your missions?” queried Mopius. “I dare say they’ve got flowers enough out there. Better than those.” He contemptuously pointed a fat finger at a whole cluster of bright-colored balls.

“In Borneo, JacÓbus, among the wild Dajaks, the head-hunters, JacÓbus.” She rested her work in her lap. “So you despise my poor flowers? They will have, I feel confident, their message to those savage hearts.”

“Bosh!” said JacÓbus.

“What, do you not believe in the civilizing influences of refinement?” Josine spoke with sudden asperity. “What are you but a Dajak?”—JacÓbus lifted his big bald head indignantly—“as the President of the Missionary Conference so beautifully said—”

“I? What does he mean? Who talked about me?” burst in JacÓbus, furiously. “If my candidature for Parliament exposes me—”

“You, I, everybody. What are we but Dajaks clothed and in our right minds? I feel confident that when the innocent children hang up my roses on the rude walls of their dwellings, their fathers will take down the hideous heads of victims which now form their only decoration. JacÓbus, could you leave a rosebud lying next to a skull?”

“Josine, you’re a fool,” answered JacÓbus. “I wonder how Roderick can find patience to live with you.”

The DominÉ sighed, then coughed hastily, blushing.

“What do the city missionaries say?” persisted Miss Mopius, who was accustomed to having the last word: “‘Beautify the home,’ ‘Put up a picture in your room.’ Mine is the same principle. JacÓbus, after thus rudely abusing me, you might give me a contribution.”

“Oh, well—there!” replied JacÓbus, fingering out a gold piece from his waistcoat-pocket. “But I don’t believe in missionaries. They’re all dashed nonsense and lies.”

The DominÉ started by the window, like a war-horse that hears the bugle-call. “Don’t say that, JacÓbus,” he interposed. “You shouldn’t say that.”

“Shouldn’t? Shouldn’t? I know more about missionaries than you do. A set of guzzling do-nothings, living on the money of silly spinsters like her.” He pointed to his sister, who immediately put her hand to her head.

“You forget that I also have seen something of heathen countries,” replied the DominÉ, with somewhat heightened intonation; “and I, who was then a soldier of the sword, I delight to pay my tribute of humblest admiration to the soldiers of the Cross. Theirs is a certain daily sacrifice without possibility of fame or reward; and you, JacÓbus—forgive me that I say it—you people who have gone in search of money, where they go in search of souls, you, on your return, should at least have the grace to be silent about their occasional delinquencies, as they are about your continuous atrocities. Of course I am speaking collectively. I have not the slightest intention to insinuate—”

“Abuse Josine,” cried JacÓbus, floundering to his feet; “I see my cab has come. Begad! why don’t you pitch into Josine?”

“Josine is a woman,” replied the DominÉ, shamefacedly, following his retreating brother-in-law down the passage. “I always feel that we are at a great disadvantage with regard to the gentler sex, though I freely admit that Josine—”

“Well, you needn’t work your steam off on me, and that when I so seldom come to see you! By Jove! it’s too bad. Look here, Rovers, I am going on to Ursula. I wanted to have spoken to you about serious matters, instead of wasting my time on missionaries. You know, I’m the Radical candidate for Horstwyk. Of course you’ll support me, and Ursula will take her cue from you.”

“I have no politics,” replied the DominÉ, resting his armless sleeve on the gate-post; “and Ursula will judge for herself.”

“You mean to oppose me?” cried JacÓbus, suddenly filling the fly-window with his big orange face.

“No; I never vote—I do not consider it a part of a pastor’s work. But I certainly shall not influence Ursula.”

“Oh, be hanged to you!” retorted Mopius, immensely put out. “But I’ll undertake to manage Ursula without any influence of yours. Drive on, coachman—to the Horst.”

The DominÉ crept away to his sanctum with slow shakes of the head. He reflected that Mopius might have been right about “letting off the steam.” But what can one do? Has Pericles not said that, “He who knows a thing to be right, but does not clearly explain it, is no better than he who does not know.” Again the DominÉ shook his head, and, with a mechanical glance at the foxed engraving of Havelock, he hurried to his easy-chair and his Bible.

Mopius meanwhile was hastening to his second and far more important interview. Gradually his ruffled feathers smoothed down, and he smiled with a certain complacence. Rovers had always been a wrong-headed fellow, and therefore obstinate. “Head-strong and head-wrong” was a favorite formula with Mopius, who, of course, considered himself to be neither. He had disapproved of Mary’s marriage, although not knowing Captain Rovers at the time. Mary was handsome, he said, and might have done better. Besides, some exceptionally important people disapprove of all their relations’ marriages on principle.

Mopius was now the official candidate of the Radical party. He had explained that he was uncle to the Baroness van Helmont of the Horst, and everybody had immediately understood his fitness for the post he coveted. For the influence of the Lady of the Manor must be all-decisive. It wanted but a word passed round to the tenants, and the election was secure. Was Mynheer Mopius assured of his niece’s support? So many of these high-born ladies had a weakness for religion. It was old-fashioned, of course, and the worse for wear, but they inherited it, like the family jewels, or gout.

Mynheer Mopius shrewdly closed his eyelids. The movement was eloquent of quiet strength. If that was all they wanted, he could set them at rest. He had his little plan.

Well, that was all they wanted. He need only bring them a signed declaration from Ursula, and they would recognize him. So he started for the Horst to fetch it. Meanwhile—such things leak out—he was practically their candidate already.

Only the Baron van Trossart had been disagreeable and exacting. But he was notoriously an ill-tempered man. He had muttered stupid insinuations about wolves in sheep’s clothing. And he had finally insisted upon a written obligation from Mopius—“quite between you and me, of course”—that the latter would always and unconditionally vote with the Liberal party.

“Why, of course, Mynheer the Baron,” JacÓbus had said, eagerly. “You must have misunderstood me when we met in Mynheer van Troyen’s smoking-room. ‘Always and unconditionally vote with the Liberal party.’ Where shall I sign it? I have not the slightest objection. You will support me, I hope?”

“Yes, and be damned to you,” said the Baron van Trossart.

When Mopius arrived at the Manor-house Ursula was again closeted with the notary. She rose with a swift impulse of relief as soon as her uncle’s name reached her ear. She looked harassed. “You must excuse me, Mynheer Noks,” she said, going to the door. “We can talk it over again another time.”

“When?” said the notary.

“One of these days. To-morrow, perhaps. No, the day after.”

The notary followed her, inflexible.

“Mevrouw,” he said, “we can’t put off quarter-day. There is the interest, and there is that bill I spoke of. Three thousand florins are still wanting to make up the sum. In ten days’ time you must have them.”

“Must!” repeated Ursula, haughtily, drawing herself up.

“Yes. Must. It’s not my ‘must,’ but the law’s. The law knows nothing of great ladies. High or low, must is must.” Ah, thought the irritated notary, Mejuffrouw Rovers, I had you there!

“Mynheer Noks, I cannot keep my uncle waiting.”

Mopius was standing in the small drawing-room with the Guicciardi ceiling, his fishy eyes unappreciatively fixed on a Florentine inlaid cabinet full of cameos and signets.

“A lot of money here,” he said, by way of greeting, as Ursula entered. “And what rubbish outside a museum! Why, my terra-cottas at Blanda are ten times as effective.”

“The things belong to the Dowager Baroness,” replied Ursula.

“Why, you’re the Dowager Baroness now, ain’t you?” objected Mopius. “Harriet said so when we sent our cards. Who’d have thought it of Mary’s child? Not that I care a brass farthing for barons or princes of any kind. You couldn’t make a greater mistake, Ursula, than to imagine that I felt in any way proud about your elevation; so don’t ever come offering to do me any service of any kind.”

“It is the last thing I should wish to do,” replied Ursula. “Won’t you sit down?”

“Quite right, though I can’t say you put it very prettily. However, in this family, it’s I that confer benefits. I’ve come here with that object now. You’re a mighty fine lady, Ursula; but you may be glad of a burgher uncle with a well-filled purse.”

Ursula waited, wondering.

“I’m going to offer you money,” said her uncle, bluntly.

Ursula dropped her eyes to the floor. “You are doubly mistaken, Uncle JacÓbus,” she answered in her coldest manner. “I am not a fine lady, nor am I a beggar.”

“Hoity-toity! Not a beggar? H’m. No money wanted? Ha!” Mopius got up, in all the splendor of his well-clothed portliness. “How about that bill which falls due on the first? Ah, you see, I know. How about that, my Lady of the Horst?”

Ursula rose also. She was not too proud to accept assistance. But of some of our friends we know at once that their seeming favors cannot really be to our advantage. It is only a question of finding out.

“Does everybody in Drum know all about my affairs?” asked Ursula, her pale face turning very red.

“Everybody? Fie! am I everybody? Ursula, I can never forget that you are my own sister Mary’s only child.”

“No,” replied Ursula, “I suppose not.”

“But a good many people do know, undeniably. And that must end. It hurts my feelings. I am not a windbag of a noble. I am a simple gentleman, a hater of shams. I like money to ring clear on the counter, full weight.” JacÓbus patted his waistcoat-pocket. “So, Ursula, this is what I have to propose: Things can’t go on in the present manner, nor can I have my niece sold up. I offer to make you an annual payment of five thousand florins—”

“Uncle JacÓbus!”

Mynheer Mopius smiled with contented deprecation.

“That is your side of the matter. As long as I represent the district of Horstwyk in Parliament. That is mine.”

“But you may never represent Horstwyk in Parliament?”

Mynheer Mopius sat down again.

“That depends upon my Lady of the Horst,” he said. “So you see it is very simple. You intimate to your tenants that you wish them to vote for Mopius, and I pay in to your bankers the sum I have just named.”

Ursula remained silent, thoughtful.

“It is pure generosity on my part,” continued her uncle; “for, anyway, you surely wouldn’t have instructed them to vote on the other side. But that’s my way. I don’t mind. And I’m glad to help my sister Mary’s child.”

Ursula seemed slowly to have understood the very simple transaction. Her uncle watched her with a trace of anxiety in his unhealthy eyes. Surely there was nothing in his offer dishonest or dishonorable?

“There is one little objection to the arrangement you propose,” said Ursula, at last.

“Of course,” replied Mopius; “women always have one little objection to every arrangement—it is their way of getting the last word.”

“I mean one objection which renders all others superfluous. You are the Liberal candidate, and my sympathies are with the Clericals.”

Mynheer Mopius sat back, puffing and snorting.

“Nonsense!” he said—“Ursula, nonsense! What do women know about politics? Your father confessed he knew nothing, so he can’t have taught you. And Otto, I was given to understand—”

“Let us leave Otto out of the question, please,” interrupted Ursula, with some asperity. “In this matter, at least, I am my own mistress.”

“But the traditions of the Van Helmont family—”

“The traditions of the Van Helmont family are, of course, Conservative, and Conservatism is dead. At this moment I, a woman, have to choose, according to my feeble lights, between State atheism and a persecuted sect.”

“And lose,” said Mopius, “the five thousand florins.”

But that was a stupid move. Ursula’s eye kindled in the silence which ensued.

“Ursula,” exclaimed JacÓbus in despair, for he saw his chances fading, “you are utterly unreasonable! How dare you suggest that I am an atheist, that I have any objection to religion? I distinctly approve of religion. It is a praise-worthy and highly respectable thing, and I always allow the servants to go to church. Your aunt Josine is right: you are nothing but a foolish child. What do you know about politics?”

“Very little,” replied Ursula, calmly; “but it seems to me that the less one knows about politics, the better one can choose between principles. And I choose the principle of liberty to worship God.”

JacÓbus flourished his big hand till he almost touched her face. “Hang your quiet way!” he cried. “There’s no talking to a woman like you. So you mean to tell me your mind’s made up, you fool? Instead of living here in luxury and splendor, all settled and comfortable, as I suggest, you’ll let this over-mortgaged place come under the hammer, and go home to your old father without clothes to your back?”

Ursula stood, black and tall, by the desolate hearth. “Uncle Mopius, I don’t want the money, but I’m very sorry not to be able to do as you wish. This is my sole opportunity, my single bit of influence, so to say, in my new position, and I must use it as I think best.”Tears of spite swam across Mynheer Mopius’s vision. “Ursula,” he said, “you—you idiot, why didn’t you tell me you had political opinions before?”

“I didn’t know you cared—but what difference would that have made?” she answered, innocently.

He caught up his hat with an indignant swoop. “Never again,” he said, “shall you touch a penny of mine. You are ruining my prospects and your own, from sheer caprice. I shall never, now, be a member of Parliament. But I’ll pay you out. And to think that you have done this—you, who are my own sister Mary’s child.”

“Yes,” replied Ursula, grimly. “I always was.”